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October 1964
Vol 43, Number 1 << Previous: July 1964 | Next: January 1965 >> FIND FOREIGN AFFAIRS ON A NEWSSTAND NEAR YOU  |  |
World Perspectives, 1964
Grayson Kirk
Søren Kierkegaard once said that "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." As applied to public policy in general, and to foreign policy in particular, this is a counsel of despair because it implies that men must govern themselves and shape their policies without really knowing what they are about or why. But if this observation is to be disproved, and the historian unseated as the only proper analyst of human affairs, then men must be prepared resolutely to try to follow Aldous Huxley's advice "to look at the world directly and not through the half- opaque medium of concepts, which distorts every given fact into the all too familiar likeness of some generic label or explanatory abstraction."
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Japanese Security and American Policy
George F. Kennan
The provisions of the Japanese Constitution barring the resort to war as an
instrument of Japanese policy, and effectively committing Japan not to
maintain armed forces on a major scale, has long raised the question how
Japan's security is to be assured in a world still replete with sources of
international conflict. As late as 1948 it was still General MacArthur's
view, if the writer of these lines understood him correctly, that it would
not be essential for the United States to maintain armed forces on the
Japanese archipelago permanently or for a protracted time either for its
own security or for that of Japan; in his view, the most suitable status
for Japan would be one of permanent demilitarization and neutralization
under such general protection as might be afforded by the United Nations
and by the friendly interest of the United States. He appeared to believe,
as did this writer, that if such a status could be arranged with the
concurrence of the Soviet Government, the likelihood of a Soviet attack on
Japan would be minimal; and it was not easy to see from what other quarter
Japan could be seriously threatened. This concept assumed, of course, an
eventual agreement between the Soviet Union, the United States and other
interested parties, on the terms of a Japanese peace settlement.
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Quebec in Revolt
William E. Griffith
For over 150 years after the fall of Quebec to the British in 1759, the
Province of Quebec was a poor, agrarian, patriarchal, clerical society. It
wanted little more from the English Canadians than to be let alone to
slumber peacefully and to preserve its language and (like Ireland) its
Roman Catholic religion. But little by little, and particularly since World
War II, the industrialization and prosperity of the United States and of
the rest of Canada have brought great changes. Less than half of the people
of Quebec now live on farms; the growth of its cities has been enormous
(Montreal now has more than a million people); and its rich natural
resources-minerals, timber and hydroelectric power-have been rapidly
developed.
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After the U.N. Trade Conference: Lessons and Portents
Sidney Weintraub
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development-UNCTAD-was not only
the biggest trade conference in history, it was the biggest international
conference in history on any subject, numbering upwards of 2,000 delegates.
It is worth repeating what Isaiah Frank noted in his article in the January
1964 issue of this journal, that the developing countries viewed the
conference as the single most important event for them since the founding
of the U.N. The formal findings and recommendations of the conference,
which lasted for 12 weeks ending in mid-June, are embodied in its Final
Act. That governments consider this an important document is clear from the
long hours and occasional bitter debate that went into its formulation. But
it is also clear that the official record of the conference at best can
give only official conclusions and that these alone are not the stuff of
which future policy is made.
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Australia and Southeast Asia
Paul Hasluck
Australia, the sixth continent, lay outside world affairs until settled by
Europeans. The 300,000 aborigines, who were its only inhabitants until the
end of the eighteenth century, were untouched by the outside world except
for infrequent visits by Malays and possibly Chinese to a few points on the
northern coastline, and these had no knowledge of or interest in world
affairs. But modern Australia is neither isolated nor isolationist.
Australians have fought overseas in five wars in the last century, have
known hostile bombs on their own soil and at present have a substantial
proportion of their armed services on duty in other lands. By its origin in
six British colonies, modern Australia was linked to world power contests;
by its growth it has become part of them, and today we cannot read our
national future except in the language of world politics.
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Laos: Continuing Crisis
Eric Pace
The April coup in Vientiane and the subsequent defeat of the neutralists at
the Plain of Jars underscored the fact that the 1962 settlement was only a
fig leaf, not a solution, for the country's perennial civil war in Laos.
The events of the past two years have left the situation there as complex
and explosive as before.
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Viet Nam: Do We Understand Revolution?
Major-General Edward G. Lansdale
Whatever course the long struggle in Viet Nam finally takes, short of
nuclear holocaust, one thing seems certain: the people of Viet Nam still
will be there. This is a reminder that war in Viet Nam is a "people's war."
As such, it is a constantly recurring phenomenon of this period of man's
history. How it is fought and what happens to the Vietnamese people as a
result have meanings, therefore, far beyond today or the boundaries of Viet
Nam itself. "People's wars" elsewhere will also make demands on the
American people to help solve them. Thus, although the hour is late in Viet
Nam, terribly so, there is time yet for Americans to consider the war in
Viet Nam in its "people" nature, especially as regards what American
assistance in these critical months will come to mean to the Vietnamese
people in their own future, and to us in ours.
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Soviet Policy in the Developing Countries
Philip E. Mosely
The recent journey of Nikita Khrushchev to the United Arab Republic, and
the more extensive travels of Chou En-lai to Asian and African countries,
have pointed up the new context of an old dilemma of Soviet and, more
generally, of Communist policy. Should Communists-in-power give vigorous
political, economic and strategic backing to non-Communist and nationalist
régimes in order to strengthen them and thus weaken the "imperialist bloc?"
Or will this strategy lead, through the development of effective non-
Communist régimes, to blocking the spread of Communism? Or would it be more
profitable in the long run for Moscow and Peking to direct their support
only to avowed or potential supporters of Communist doctrine and
revolutions?
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The Importance of Being Black
Frank Moraes
Africa poses a challenge largely because of its unpredictability. The Dark
Continent, to some extent the Unknown Continent, it has come up politically
with a rush; the postwar fever for independence catapulted some 30 states
into freedom within a decade. Culturally, vast tracts of Africa have leaped
from the Stone Age to the twentieth century in a matter of three
generations. Growing industrialization in the cities and towns between the
two wars and after has led to a migration from the bush to the developing
urban centers which has affected not only the economic but the social and
political values of the African; uprooted from his tribal moorings and
exposed to a new way of life, thought and civilization, he finds himself
embarked on a voyage of rediscovery which concerns not only his individual
self but his people and country.
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For an Atlantic Future
Theo Sommer
Where does West Germany stand in the Great Debate about the future shape of
the Atlantic Alliance? Are the "Atlanticists," represented by Chancellor
Erhard and his Foreign Minister Schröder, really on the wane? Is the "Euro-
Gaullist" school of thought, led by former Chancellor Konrad Adenauer,
former Defense Minister Franz-Josef Strauss and Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg,
in the ascendancy?
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Moscow and the M.L.F.: Hostility and Ambivalence
Zbigniew Brzezinski
In the Soviet opposition to the American-sponsored scheme for a
Multilateral Force-the NATO nuclear-missile fleet-two themes have been
paramount: the M.L.F. is the opening wedge for the German acquisition of
nuclear weapons, and the M.L.F. will set in motion the process of nuclear
proliferation. According to Soviet spokesmen, the consequences are bound to
be dangerous for the peace of the world, and, as if to give credence to
these warnings, they have ominously hinted that the "most serious"
consequences will follow implementation of this scheme.
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South Africa and the World
Charles A. W. Manning
At a time when South Africa, by reason of what are commonly referred to as
its "racial" policies, has become the object of such universal censure, it
behooves any thinking South African to examine for himself the anatomy of
that program which is exciting so much dissent, and not simply to content
himself with a public posture suggested by some climate of opinion, whether
in South Africa or abroad. The fact that he may not have voted for those
who sponsor the program should not prevent him from according it such
merits as it seems to him to possess, independent of its parenthood. It
need not prevent his seeing many of the strictures currently passed upon it
as unwarranted and incorrect.
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Korea's "Mendicant Mentality"?
Pyong Choon Hahm
Not long ago, at a social gathering, I overheard a high-ranking U.S.
military officer berating the Korean people for their "mendicant
mentality." He was deeply annoyed by the inability of the Koreans to find a
way to live independently, without always looking to the United States for
financial help. He did not see how the American taxpayers could be made to
carry indefinitely the burden of helping a poor nation that seems unable or
unwilling to help itself. He cited the billions of dollars of American aid
that have been poured into Korea since 1945. If this has not made the
Koreans self-supporting by now, could there ever be an end to American
almsgiving? The Koreans must be made to realize, he said, that they had to
get onto their own feet very soon; otherwise continued American aid would
only create what one American news magazine several years ago termed a
"handout mentality."
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